The Only One He Ever Loved
by Bookworm1063
Summary: Tom Riddle was always angry, always doing things people couldn't make excuses for. Once, there was someone willing to see past that. Once, there was someone who loved him. And when he lost her, he lost everything.
1. Chapter 1: Catherine

_Tom Riddle was always angry, always doing things people couldn't make excuses for. Once, there was someone willing to see past that. Once, there was someone who loved him. And when he lost her, he lost everything._

o-o-o-o-o

"Come on, Tom. There's no need to be rude."

Tom grabbed his best friend's hand, not looking back at her, keeping his focus on the eight-year-old boy in front of him. "Apologize."

The boy trembled, hovering six inches off the ground now, tears streaming down his face.

"Tom!" Catherine yanked on his arm. "Let him go."

"He called you a freak." Tom clenched his free hand into a fist, and the boy gasped in pain.

"Tom. Put. Him. Down."

Tom turned to face Catherine, and unclenched his fist. The boy collapsed on the ground.

Catherine squeezed Tom's hand, moving to comfort the boy. "It's alright. He's sorry." She glanced over her shoulder. "You are sorry, aren't you, Tom?"

"I… yes. I'm sorry." He wasn't, really. But he'd apologize, for her.

"Here. Let's get you inside." Catherine helped the trembling boy to his feet, guiding him into the orphanage. Tom followed behind them, watching his best friend. They were nine years old.

o-o-o-o-o

Catherine's laughter echoed through the small courtyard, her hand just missing Tom's shoulder as he ducked behind the solitary tree in the center. "Slow down!"

"No. You'll win," Tom pointed out, smiling as he backed away.

"I know." Catherine lunged forward again, this time managing to brush her fingers against Tom's sleeve. "You're it."

The children chased each other around the courtyard for a while longer, until Catherine, exhausted, collapsed into the shade of the tree. "Will you write to me? When you go?"

"Of course." Tom sat next to his friend, holding out one hand, causing a small bird to fly down and perch on his finger. Catherine smiled, allowing the bird to hop onto her arm before flying back into the tree.

"It's really magic." Catherine's smile lit up her whole face. "It's amazing. You know that, right? When you don't hurt anyone… what you can do is amazing."

Tom looked away, suddenly ashamed. Only Catherine could make him feel that way. "I can't always… help it."

"I know. You're going to learn, though. At school."

"Yes."

Catherine raised one eyebrow, and Tom sighed.

"It's just- I wish you could come. You're the only one who… understands."

"I can't. You know I'm not like you, Tom."

"You should be. You deserve to be."

Catherine shrugged. "I don't think that's how it works."

"I mean it. You deserve… _this_-" Tom waved his hands, accidentally sending all the leaves on the low-hanging branch of the tree flying- "more than I do. I do bad things with my magic. You wouldn't."

Catherine leaned her head on Tom's shoulder, her brown hair trailing along the ground. "It's not your fault. Your life isn't easy. You'll learn."

"You're still kind. You're a better person than me."

"I'm not." Catherine smiled up at Tom, and he could see all the faith his best friend had in him. "You'll be fine."

They were eleven years old.

o-o-o-o-o

Tom knew that without Catherine, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from doing horrible things to people.

He was right.

Tom knew that what he did was wrong. Hurting people like this- it _was _wrong. There was a sickness inside him, and without Catherine, he didn't have a way to get rid of it.

Even Catherine only helped- she couldn't fix it.

Tom didn't know if anything could.

Tom told Catherine, one summer, that he didn't know what was wrong with him. Why he did these things. Catherine didn't leave him, didn't turn away from him. That was why he loved her.

She was the only one who saw the darkness in his soul, and never turned away.

Later that summer, Tom kissed Catherine in the shade of the old tree in the tiny courtyard. They were sixteen.

o-o-o-o-o

When people asked Catherine why she loved Tom Riddle, she was never sure what to tell them.

Not because she didn't know- she did. But the Tom she knew and loved was very different from the Tom most people knew.

Catherine knew Tom did terrible things. She knew that what they had couldn't last. She knew what her friend was becoming, what he, perhaps, had always been.

But love is irrational, and Catherine didn't care. If she could postpone that day, the day when the good in Tom would die, she would.

Around her, Tom was funny and charming and loving. Around her, he laughed and smiled and cried.

Around other people, he was still charming. Still charismatic- but there was a darker edge under it all, one that Catherine wasn't sure everyone else could see.

Tom was all Catherine had ever had. They'd grown up together, with all the other parentless children. Tom had defended Catherine when those other children had made fun of her- for her eyes (one green, one brown), for her quiet nature, for her habit of talking to the small birds that often perched on her windowsill.

So when they were eighteen years old, they found a place together. Tom worked in a shop that sold strange magical artefacts. Catherine tutored some of the local children. They were happy.

But Catherine knew what Tom wasn't telling her. She knew better than to blindly trust even the person she loved most in the world. She listened- Catherine had always been a good listener. She knew where the magical folk of London gathered to gossip, where news could be found.

She knew what Tom was doing. And she knew she had to go.

She had stayed with him for too long. She loved him, but she couldn't stay.

So one morning, before Tom left for work, Catherine kissed him one last time.

When Tom returned that afternoon, she was gone.

They were twenty-one years old.

o-o-o-o-o

Tom never saw Catherine again.

Without her, he quickly lost any remaining trace of humanity. He build an army, waged a pointless war, murdered hundreds of innocent people, tore thousands of lives apart.

Tom never saw Catherine again- but Catherine saw Tom.

She learned how to watch from afar. She watched Tom descend so far into the darkness that he was unrecognizable as the boy who had once defended her from orphanage bullies.

On Halloween of 1981, Catherine was the only one who wept.

Less than two months later, a knock sounded on her door. An old man with long silver hair and beard sat down in her small living room, and asked her to tell her story.

So she did.

She did not give him any of her memories of Tom- she wanted to keep those for herself- but she did allow him to view them.

"I had no idea," Albus Dumbledore said. "I never knew he had ever been capable of love."

"He wasn't" Catherine said. "Not really. He corrupted everything he loved, and I should have left far sooner than I did. I was blinded by my own love for him."

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully, then said, "He is not dead, you know."

"I know," Catherine said. "He will return. The Tom I knew was much to stubborn to allow himself to die at the hands of an infant."

Dumbledore chuckled, then said, "That infant will grow up. Harry Potter will be the Dark Lord's downfall, I think."

"Good," Catherine said. "Death might restore his soul to what it… could have been."

"Why did you love him?" Dumbledore asked. "Forgive an old man's curiosity, but… if you always knew what he was, why did you love him?"

Catherine smiled slightly. "I loved him because he was then only person who ever saw me. Without him, I would have faded into the shadows. He protected me when I needed it, and he was kind to me. I liked that I could calm him down when he was angry. I liked being needed. But most of all… we were orphans, Albus. We were angry, every single one of us. Something about his darkness appealed to me."

Dumbledore didn't say anything for a long moment, then said, "You still love him." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. But I am not blinded by that love any longer."

Dumbledore and Catherine shook hands, and then Hogwarts' headmaster Disapparated from Catherine's front porch.

Catherine stood outside for a while longer, watching the crisp autumn leaves fall.

They were fifty-five years old.

o-o-o-o-o

Catherine knew when Tom returned.

She heard from her contacts in the Wizarding world, who were paid handsomely to bring news to the old Muggle woman with a particular interest in the Dark Lord's movements.

This time, she did not make the mistake of standing by again. She wrote to Albus Dumbledore, and joined the Order of the Phoenix. There was only so much an elderly Muggle could do in a Wizard's war, but nevertheless, she sent Dumbledore any information she could get from her contacts. She delivered messages to places where a Wizard would have been too conspicuous.

She wasn't there, at the Battle of Hogwarts. But a few short months after Tom's death, another knock sounded at her door.

A young man stood there, the lightning bolt scar barely visible under a shock of untidy black hair.

"Hello," he said uncertainly. "Um. Dumbledore's portrait sent me here… I'm not entirely sure why, though."

"You're Harry Potter," Catherine said. "I know why you're here."

"Ok." Harry came in, and sat in Catherine's old armchair. Catherine made tea, and a plate of scones.

"Who are you, exactly?" Harry asked.

"To most people, no one special," Catherine said. "I'm a seventy-one year old muggle woman, an orphan, someone who amassed a reasonable amount of wealth tutoring rich children. The only person who ever noticed me died last spring- and I hadn't seen him in fifty years before that."

Harry Potter was by no means unintelligent, and caught on quickly. "Who were you to Tom Riddle, then?"

Catherine smiled. "My name is Catherine," she said. "And I'm the only one he ever loved."

_Fin._


	2. Chapter 2: Tom

The first time Tom used his magic, he was five years old.

The children had been allowed to play in the courtyard, one unusually warm spring day. Tom was sitting alone under the old tree when he heard the sound of tears.

All Tom could see, from where he was sitting, was three of the older boys, gathered around something- or someone.

Tom pushed himself to his feet, making his way across the courtyard with a toddler's stumbling gait. As he got closer, he could see the source of the crying.

The boys were clustered around a girl, huddled in the grass, her dress stained and her cheeks dirty. One of the boys was holding a doll aloft by its hair.

Tom had never seen this girl before. She must have arrived that morning.

The boys were laughing, tossing the doll around, while the girl continued to sob. The nurse wasn't doing anything- a quick glance from Tom confirmed that she was engrossed in a novel, not paying attention to anything the children were doing.

Tom turned the full force of his glare on the boys. "Leave her alone."

All three of the boys left off tormenting the girl to focus on Tom. "What're you gonna do about it, pipsqueak?" one of them asked, jeering down at Tom like he was nothing more than an ant to be squashed beneath one of his boots.

Tom clenched his fists at his side.

Behind him, a branch broke off of the old tree with a resounding _crack._ It flew through the air at an impossible speed, hitting the first boy squarely on the forehead. He dropped to the ground with a muffled _thud._

Tom didn't know what he was doing, but he _liked _it- the rush of power was intoxicating, even at five years old. He was grinning now, wild happiness rushing through him, and twin gusts of wind knocked the remaining boys back.

Tom moved forward to the girl's side, and reached a hand down to help her to her feet. She took it.

The first thing Tom noticed about the girl were her eyes. One a fierce, almost fiery green- the other, a soft, gentle brown.

"I'm Tom," he said to the girl, scooping up her doll from where it had fallen to the ground and handing it to her.

She closed her small fingers around the doll's arm, and he released his grip on it. "I'm Catherine."

o-o-o-o-o

The station at King's Cross was a sea of shouting people, steam from the engines of trains, trunks lying abandoned and the wails of small children. Catherine clung tightly to Tom's hand, and he let her. Anyone else would have been shaken off by now, threatened or hurt by the strange power that lived under Tom's skin. But not Catherine- never Catherine.

Tom himself had a battered secondhand trunk, full of battered, secondhand books and robes. His wand- the one thing he had purchased new- was already tucked into his sleeve.

From their vantage point standing on top of an empty bench situated halfway along the platform, Tom and Catherine witnessed a family of four walk up to the barrier between platforms nine and ten, and vanish through the wall. The two children had trunks just like Tom's.

"That's it," Catherine said, pointing. "You have to go through there." Her voice was full of wonder, and for the thousandth time, Tom wished he could bring his best friend to Hogwarts with him.

Tom grinned, the sort of smile that made most people run in the opposite direction. "You can come as far as the platform, surely?"

"I don't know," Catherine said slowly, but Tom could tell she wanted to. "I promised Mrs. Cole I'd be waiting when she got back…"

"It shouldn't take long, right?" Tom squeezed her hand in his, looking at her with the most innocent expression he could muster.

Catherine laughed, but hopped off the bench and followed him through the barrier, onto platform nine and three-quarters.

The crowds in the Muggle station had been nothing compared to this. Here, there was the hooting of owls, shouted warnings from nervous parents, excited whoops as returning students were reunited with friends, and tearful pleas from siblings too young to follow filling a much smaller space. Tom thought his head might split open from the chaos of it all.

The great scarlet steam engine let out a shrill whistle, and Tom turned to face Catherine.

"I'll see you this summer," he said. "And I'll write."

Catherine was crying now, but Tom didn't say anything. "I'm going to miss you, Tom."

"I really wish you could come with me."

"So do I." Catherine gave Tom one last hug. "Be careful, ok? Make friends… and help people, instead of, you know…"

"Hurting them," Tom said. "I know. But you're the only friend I need."

With that, Tom disentangled himself from Catherine's tearful embrace and boarded the Hogwarts Express. As the train pulled out of the platform, he stood at the window, waving until Catherine's face blurred into the crowd, then was gone.

Tom turned from the window, facing the rest of the train. Catherine would be disappointed in him, if she ever found out what he was willing to do for answers. But he would not disappoint her.

She would never know.

Tom set off down the corridor, looking for someone who might be able to… help him.

o-o-o-o-o

Through all his years at Hogwarts, Tom never told Catherine the complete truth.

She knew that he was researching his parent's families, but not when he killed his father. She knew he could speak to snakes, but not what he did with that power when he was fifteen.

Still, she must have found out. Somehow.

Tom left the flat for work on the morning of June twenty-second in high spirits. Ms. Hepzibah Smith had invited him to her home for tea that afternoon, and Tom was hopeful that he might finally find proof that Hepzibah had the objects he was searching for. A trinket supposedly belonging to Helga Hufflepuff herself.

His mother's locket. _Slytherin's _locket.

Catherine was already awake when Tom emerged from their bedroom, fully dressed, carrying a stack of papers the old man at the shop had asked him to go through.

Catherine handed him a plate with bread, butter, and bacon. "Eat something, Tom. You'll work yourself to the bone." There was something in her eyes as she said it…

Tom smiled at her, setting the plate aside on the counter. "Thank you, my love," he murmured, pulling her closer to him. She reached up to press her lips to his.

"Eat," she ordered, pulling away, green and brown eyes flashing. Tom chuckled, setting his papers aside and reaching for the plate. Catherine sat down opposite Tom at the tiny wooden table.

"I love you," she said.

Tom reached for her hand, the gold setting of Marvolo's ring brushing her fingers as he did so. "I know. I love you, too."

Tom left for work shortly thereafter, stopping only to kiss Catherine one last time in the doorway of their small flat. Then he was gone, making his way to the ground floor and the small alley behind the building, where he Disapparated to the Leaky Cauldron.

When Tom returned home that afternoon, the flat was empty. He didn't worry, at first. Catherine often went out on errands, or did odd jobs tutoring the local children.

After a few hours, Tom happened to open one of Catherine's drawers, searching for a jar of ink.

Empty.

A quick search of the flat revealed that Catherine's shabby suitcase, the one she'd brought with her from the orphanage, was missing, as were all of her clothes, her favorite books, and the old, shabby doll that had once sat on a shelf in their bedroom.

Tom did not cry, or scream, or rage. What he did, once he had make absolute certainty of the fact that Catherine was gone, that she was not coming back, was Apparate at once to Borgin and Burkes, to quit his job.

From there, he made his way to Hepzibah Smith's house.

o-o-o-o-o

The years continued to pass. Tom amassed his army, became known far and wide for his acts of terror.

If Catherine had an ear to the news from the Wizarding World (and Tom thought that surely she must), then she would know exactly where he was now, what he was doing. It was difficult, but not impossible, to trace Tom Riddle to Lord Voldemort- he'd made sure of that. At any time, she could have returned to him.

She never did.

Tom hid all trace of Catherine's existence from everyone who might bother to look, well before he ever went to Godric's Hollow to hunt the Potters. Unfortunately, he didn't count on someone being diligent enough to dig through old orphanage records and lease agreements on tiny flats in London. In other words, he didn't anticipate anyone taking the Muggle approach to such matters.

When Tom pointed his wand at the baby Harry Potter, his last thought, as his body was ripped to shreds, was of Catherine. He wondered if she would hear the news. If she would weep.

If she was even still alive.

Still, Tom was simply too stubborn to stay dead for long. It took him thirteen years, but he returned to power.

Tom was sixty-eight years old now. He had not seen Catherine in nearly fifty years. He tried not to think about her too much. Some days, he even succeeded.

He had looked, at first. After a while, he had simply given up. Hidden her from his world, and buried all evidence of his greatest weakness.

Love made you a fool.

Three years later, he found himself facing the boy who should have died that night in Godric's Hollow. When Harry Potter revealed the truth about Severus Snape, Tom couldn't help but remember her. Snape had even had Tom fooled- and he did it for love.

The moment Potter cast his spell, Tom knew it was over. He'd had a good run. He'd damn near succeeded. But the Elder Wand refused to harm its true owner. All of his Horcruxes were gone.

_Catherine. Are you waiting for me?_

There was a flash, and a bang.

Green light.

Then nothing.

o-o-o-o-o

_"Tell me something. Something about you."_

_ "Like what?"_

_ "I don't know. Something you've never told anyone else before. Something you're afraid of."_

_ Tom twisted around to face the girl on the tree branch next to him, the orphanage courtyard sprawled out beneath their dangling feet. _

_ "Dying."_

o-o-o-o-o

The world was white, and black, and grey, and every shade in between.

It was a city, and a sprawling empty field, and it was neither. It was your house, your school, the place you'd felt most at home.

If you were lucky, you met a soul you had known, but Death was a big place.

Tom, in the body of his ten-year-old self, could not believe he had been scared of this place. It wasn't even a place, not really. It was a blank canvas, an in-between. It might be a library to one, a cozy living room to another. You could see it as a familiar office, or as King's Cross Station.

Tom had spent a long time here now. Waiting, and dreading the moment when the wait would be over.

It happened… one day. There was no time in Death. The clocks were frozen, and the day and night changed only because you wished it. This place was nothing to fear, but Tom still missed the world of the living, where anything you might do could change history.

Death had no history. It swallowed everyone indiscriminately.

Today, Tom had chosen to wander the courtyard of the old orphanage. There was no one else there. This place held few fond memories for most.

"Tom?"

Tom froze underneath the old tree, not daring to face the source of that voice. _It couldn't be. _

He turned.

He was not the only child in the courtyard after all.

She looked exactly how he remembered. One eye witchy green, the other chocolate brown. Clothes ragged and threadbare, but neat and clean. Hair pulled back into tight braids.

A smile on her face, and laughter in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Catherine," Tom said.

Catherine shook her head. "I know."

"I was scared," Tom blurted out. "I didn't know… And I wanted to see people hurt. The way I was."

"I know," Catherine said again, but this time, she moved closer to him, into the courtyard. "But in the end, you must have felt some remorse. The evil in you was killed- that bit of good survived, here at least."

"I thought of you."

Catherine reached out, taking his small hand in her own. "When I left," she said, "It was because I had begun to see more evil in you than good. Now…"

"Now we can start over," Tom said, looking around the small courtyard.

"Yes." Catherine smiled mischievously. "Did you know there's an ice cream shop just down the road?"

"I didn't." Tom followed Catherine, out of the courtyard and into the street.

He was free of his fear at last.

_Fin._


End file.
